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Goal Setting is a strategy to help you choose where you want your business to grow to in a certain amount of time. When I set a goal, I generally actually set three levels of a goal. First, I set a really high goal that is in my mind that I really want to shoot for. Then, I set a really low goal. Let’s talk more about these three levels of goals…

The High Goal:

If the moon and the stars all align and it all comes together and everything is perfect or better than expected and I can hit that goal number. By the way, this is what most people set their goals at, this really high number. However, people always struggle to reach this “everything is going to be perfect” goal. Therefore, if you reach this goal, you feel like you are dancing on the roof.

The Low Goal:

This is just the opposite if everything went wrong. If the sky and moon fell and there was an apocalypse, how bad would it be? What are the low levels of what you can hit? Select this number. This is the basement floor level by reaching this number. If you can’t reach this number – you may be in the wrong business.

The Middle Goal:

This is the actual target goal. This goal number is somewhere in between of the high and low goal. It is a stretch, but I can do it. This is the key goal. It is the number I put out to the world knowing my high and low-level goals.

Your Action Plan:

Now reverse engineer your goals. This is really important. Take these three levels, especially the target goal, and determine where will you be in 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months to reach 100% of your target goal within one year. Where will you be every month to reach your target goal? You have to work it monthly. You cannot hit a target you are not aiming at. Therefore, you got to set your targets and you got to set those baby steps to get to those targets. Otherwise, you are going to be halfway through the year and realize that you are nowhere near to being close to your goal. If you cannot do this, you cannot set an achievable goal.

Finally, create an action plan for those goals. You got to take action. You need to have bullet point action steps. What specifically do you have to do to hit that target in 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year? In conclusion, if you do these tips, you are setting yourself up for amazing success.

For many cultures around the world, today marks the dawning of the new year. People were up at midnight, full of energy, excitedly celebrating the clock striking 12:00 a.m.–the start of 2018. More importantly, it symbolizes the chance for people to start fresh and move forward in bigger and better ways. I would like to wish you a happy New Years 2018 with this personal message about setting both personal and professional goals and achieving them in 2018.

Every year, during the last week of the year, I take time off from work and Beth and I reflect on the passing year and strategically set new goals to accomplish bigger and better things with each coming year.

If you have not done this yet, take 30 minutes today to sit down and take stock of the good, the bad, and the ugly from the past year. Then, you can forge ahead in the new year with a fresh set of goals and a specific plan to achieve those goals.

You cannot hit a target you are not aiming at. So create those targets and work towards them.

Post a message here on my blog as to what your biggest goals are in 2018. I would love to read them.

Tiffanie Kellog, who loves helping entrepreneurs create MORE in their life, shares a few tips on creating goals for 2018 that will help you achieve results!
Having a goal is not enough, they need to be SMART and an accountability partner can help!

Take time this week to set your 2018 goals.

About Tiffanie Kellog

Tiffanie Kellog is a professional speaker and trainer with Asentiv, and is co-owner of a business with her husband. Therefore, Tiffanie has helped entrepreneurs over the years make more money while saving time. Thus, they can have more fun. She is dedicated to helping others make more in less time. Click here to view more video blogs by Tiffanie Kellog.

To contact Tiffanie, call her at 813-263- 9690 or email at referrals@tiffaniekellog.com

Tiffanie Kellog is a referral marketing expert who has been sharing how to create an amazing business & spectacular life for the past 12 years. You can learn MORE about Tiffanie at

If you want to be successful in both business and in life, you will need to take time for some goal setting: set targets and have metrics in place to monitor these goals on a regular basis to track your progress.

Select a target to aim at. Then, reverse engineer your goals by counting back each month from your 1-year and 5-year goals and track your progress. Take time to regularly create and review your goals for success.

Over the years I’ve recognized that there are some people who are positive and supportive individuals that I really want to be around. They are solutions focused relating to most problems and are almost always willing to talk through challenges with a positive end in mind. These people are engines. They help me be my best self and they motivate me to drive forward.

I’ve also noticed, as I’m sure you have, that there are some people who complain as though it were an Olympic event (for the record – it’s not!). They tend to be negative, argumentative, and obsessed with problems. I’ve learned not to spend much time with these people because they focus on all the things that are wrong relating to most challenges. If all someone does is focus on problems – they become an expert on problems and not on the solutions. These people are anchors, they hold me back and weigh me down.

Who do you surround yourself with: engines or anchors? This is an important question for everyone. It’s particularly important if you are trying to build a powerful personal network of people around you. Is your network full of people who are engines helping you go to the next level in your life or your career? Or, are they anchors weighing you down with the plethora of issues, problems, and complaints? Do they hold you back, or do they drive you forward?

The funny thing here is that no-one thinks they’re an anchor. No one! Of course they’ll tell you that they are an engine – they just do not like the direction you are going and that’s why they come across the way they do. For the record – they’re an anchor – with a motor attached. My advice is to call for “all hands on deck,” cut loose the anchors in your life, partner up with your fellow engines and go full-speed ahead.

Now that we’re into Q2, all of your 2016 goals for your business should be well underway. The downside of Q2 is that many people begin to lose their momentum around this time of the year. The weather is getting nicer, the days are getting longer, and our attention span at work is getting shorter.

One great way to maintain momentum in your business is to focus on elevating your morning routine.

The ideal morning routine starts the night before, by ensuring you are set up for success. Turn off all electronic devices at least 90 minutes before bed, and never use these devices in your bed to start with. Studies show that using these devices in bed can retrain your brain to associate your bed with being awake. These studies also show that even the smallest electronic device emits enough light to stimulate your brain and promote wakefulness.

In the morning, try to wake up earlier than you need to. Before 6 a.m. is ideal, as it gives you plenty of time to eat a full breakfast, hit the gym, and get your blood flowing and brain working before you get into the meat of your day. Set a routine, and keep that routine as often as possible. Once you are settling into work, focus on projects that you are passionate about. Stay off your email as long as possible, as this is a productivity and time suck. Focus on the important things first, and hit your email later when you have time to knock off smaller tasks. Busy work should be punted to later in the day. Your mind will thank you.

What kind of morning routine do you follow to keep productive? Tell me about it in the comments below.

What is your goal for your business for the next year? How about for the next quarter? Next month?

A lot of business owners don’t have goals broken down like this, but why not? It’s difficult to reach a goal that doesn’t exist, and just saying that you want to grow your business isn’t specific enough to actually help you achieve results.

To really achieve the results you want, you need to set concrete goals, and you need to write them down.

Start far into the future. What age do you want to feel comfortable retiring? What amount in savings will make you comfortable retiring? Will you pass your business to one of your children, a trusted employee, or someone else? Map out your far out into the future goal.

Now that you know the far future you need to set yourself up to hit this goal. What milestones do you need to hit in 10, 5, or 2 years that will put you on the right path? What does your business look like at these intervals? How many employees will you have at the end of these times?

One year from today, where does your business need to be to hit your larger goals? What changes do you need to make to set yourself up for long term success? Do you need to hire more help now, or can it wait? What networking groups will you join in the next year? How are you spending your time?

At the end of the next financial quarter, what changes will you have made to start inching toward where you want to be? This is a great time to start looking at the numbers of your business, and diving into what changes you need to make over time to hit your overall goals.

In just the next month, what are your plans? It takes 21 days of doing something consistently to make it a habit, so what habits do you need to hit your goals? What can you implement in your life to start with that will help you reach your goals?

I know it may sound silly to break your goals down this much, but if you don’t know what you’re shooting for, you’ll never hit your target. Long term goals can seem too far away and too massive to be goals that you can actually work toward right now, so breaking them out into more manageable time frames can be more beneficial than you could image.

What is your long-term goal? How are you working toward it? Tell me in the comments below!

How often do you hit a slump in productivity? Worse, how often do you know what you should be doing, but then fail to do it regardless? It happens to the best of us, but the good news is that this is entirely avoidable.

Steve Levinson, PhD, and Chris Cooper recently released a book titled The Power to Get Things Done, and in it, they tackle how to turn your good intentions into actions and ultimately results.

This is one of those books that I stand behind, because I really believe that strong businesspeople can benefit from the tools to help follow through. As I said in my foreword for the book, the ability to turn good intentions into action is one of the most valuable assets that anyone who is serious about achieving their goals can have.

For me, the most impactful tips of the book are the keys to maintaining follow-through mastery. Everyone has done it at least once – you work hard to perfect your ability with something, you reach a level where you are satisfied, and then immediately stop practicing because you reached what you saw as the pinnacle. The thing with skills, though, is that you lose your ability when you stop practicing, or striving for better. What this book teaches is to always have goals in mind, and to always strive for your goals – both valuable suggestions to all business professionals.

The new year is always a time when people choose to make resolutions to make positive changes in their lives. In general, people’s resolutions tend to fall flat, and I know we’re all guilty of taking up a resolution and dropping it by the end of January.

For 2016, you should consider making a resolution that is not only realistic so you’ll be more likely to keep it, you should also consider making it something that can help you grow your business. Here are three resolution ideas, and how to keep yourself motivated to complete them (if growing your business isn’t enough motivation, that is).

At least once a quarter, attend a networking event where you don’t already know everyone

And, to top it off, make it a point to get to know the people you don’t already have connections with. How else are you going to grow your network in 2016? You have to put yourself out there!

Need motivation? At the beginning of the quarter, post on your social media that you are looking for events to attend. As your current contacts suggest events in their circles to you, make plans to attend some and ask your contact to hold you accountable. Having someone to ensure you attend the event can be enough to motivate many people.

Make a plan and keep it

This refers to a budget, a hiring plan, and an end goal for where you’d like to see you and your business by the end of 2016. You should spend the first couple weeks of 2016 making this plan, and perfecting it. Above all else, make sure that your plan is something that you will strive to complete, but is also doable.

Need motivation? Set measurable and attainable goals for deadlines throughout the year, and when you reach one of those goals at or before deadline, reward yourself. Go see a movie, have your favorite meal, spend time with loved ones – whatever you can promise yourself that you will work toward.

Keep your focus

As I’ve said numerous times before, keep your work at work and your personal life at home. So many of us are guilty of bringing work home, or daydreaming about weekend plans at our office. Keep these things separate and maintain your focus in 2016 – you’ll be amazed at the results.

Need motivation? The quality time with your loved ones, the improved productivity at work, and the cleared peace of mind should be more than enough motivation.

What are you resolving to do for 2016? Share with me in the comments below!

This time of year always leaves me very reflective. Since it is Thanksgiving here in the United States today, I just want to take a moment to talk about something near and dear to me – Givers Gain.

I have a lot to be thankful for, from my wonderful family to my striving business networking organization. Thanksgiving isn’t the only day that I’m thankful, but it certainly is one day that gives me a chance to relax and enjoy the things that I am thankful for.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again – Givers Gain is a standard, not a sword. By giving to others, in all aspects of life, ultimately I will reap the benefits. However, looking at others and judging their actions against Givers Gain will never benefit anyone. After 3 decades of keeping this standard close to my heart, it remains just as true.

That being said, I have a challenge for you all. Go out sometime in the next week or so and do something selflessly for others. It could be for someone close to you, or a complete stranger, or a group of people. Whomever you do something for, do it with only their best interest in mind.

Share with me, either through this blog or on my social media, what happened when you were truly selfless. I’d love to hear your stories.

I do a countless amount of interviews each year, and one of the questions I get asked most often is: “What is your secret to success?” In this video, I tell my personal story about my journey on the road to success and, if you are thinking the road was a quick and easy one–think again.

I often tell people who are striving to achieve success in a snap that I am a twenty-year ‘overnight’ success. In other words, there is no such thing as overnight success. It took me twenty years of working diligently and consistently, day in and day out, doing the same things over and over in order to achieve some degree of success. I firmly believe that the secret to success without hard work is still a secret. However, there is a key idea which I talk about in this video that I learned through doing research for my book Masters of Success, and it can really help when it comes to attaining success.

What’s your take on the secret to success? Are your ideas on how success is achieved different than the ideas I discuss within this video? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Some people go to a networking mixer with only one goal in mind: surviving until the time they plan to leave. However, networking doesn’t have to be a dreaded activity! Here are two tips to help you make the most of your time at networking mixers, and to help you enjoy yourself so the time will practically fly by.

Set a Goal for the Number of People You’ll Meet. To get the most out of a networking event, set a goal regarding the number of contacts you want to make or the number of business cards you want to collect. Don’t leave until you’ve met your goal.If you feel inspired, set a goal to meet fifteen to twenty people and make sure you get each person’s business card. If you don’t feel so hot, shoot for less. In either case, set a reachable goal based on the attendance and the type of group.

Spend Ten Minutes or Less with Each Person You Meet and Don’t Linger with Friends and Associates. Since your first goal is to meet a given number of people, you can’t spend too much time with any one person, no matter how interesting the conversation gets. Stay focused on making as many contacts as you can. When you meet people who are very interesting and with whom you want to spend more time, set up appointments with them. You can always meet later to continue the conversation.Don’t try to close business deals while you’re networking; it’s impractical. Set a date to meet and discuss your product or service in an environment more conducive to doing business. You may be able to increase your business with hot prospects if you take the time to fully understand their needs.Learn to leave conversations gracefully. Honesty is usually the best policy; tell them you need to connect with a few more people, sample the hors d’oeuvres, or get another drink. If you feel uncomfortable with that, exit like a host by introducing new acquaintances to someone you know. Better yet, if it seems appropriate, ask them to introduce you to people they know.Above all, don’t linger with friends and associates. These are people you already know, and you’re there to meet people you don’t know. I attended a mixer once where I saw several business friends stand and talk with one another for two hours. On their way out, one actually complained, “This was a waste of time. I didn’t get any business from it, did you?” Ummm, seriously??

I highly recommend you try executing these two tips at your next networking mixer. After you do so, come back and leave a comment in the forum below to let me know how it worked out. I’m confident you’ll be pleased with the results and I’d love to hear about your experience!